Love is Loss: A Baseball Fan's Lament

 From the archives of October 2004:

During a first round game of this year's playoffs between the Angels and the Red Sox, I sat at a bar in Cambridge and tried to explain the facts of baseball life to my friend Max. I told him that being a true baseball fan was sort of like being in a really, really bad relationship, one where you knew that nothing good could ever come of it, that you'd end up dispirited, defeated, deflated, disparaged. Oh, the love is there, all right, but, as the song says, sometimes love just ain't enough. You know what sort of pain you're setting yourself up for, but, regardless of all your attempts to make it work, you will be lost, bitter, hard, and increasingly cynical. You will vow never to let yourself get sucked in again. Then a few months will go by and, before you know it, it's spring training, and all the sleepless nights, the inability to speak your team's name without choking up, the tears, the agony, the knowledge that you gave your heart freely only to have it ripped from your chest and thrown into a fiery pit will somehow seem less dramatic and you'll remember the good times, the big wins, the nights of laughter and toasting, the shared dreams of a happy future, hope for another post season, the inevitable tug of "this is the year," and the cycle will begin all over again.

Max was a new baseball fan, though, which meant he was skeptical of my analogy. But as this post season started to hold a tighter and tighter grip around his sanity, his and all of Boston's, really, he began to understand exactly what I meant.

This is not my first year in the clutches of October Fever. I am a seasoned baseball fan, one who's watched her team suffer heart breaking injuries, losses, late-inning slip-up, pitching catastrophes, errors heard 'round the world, batters doing nothing but whiff wood through empty air, moronic managers, scapegoats, and careless umpires. I grew up in the Cleveland area, so I know the full-range a franchise can showcase. At one point, the Indians were such an awful team, Hollywood made a film about it that included lines like, "Here in Cleveland? I didn't know they still had a team!" Of course, there was a resurgence of power for about six or seven years in the mid-to-late 90's that rallied the city together to chant in one voice, "Goooo Tribe!" With the construction of Jacob's Field in 1994, the people of Cleveland came to the House that Dick Built with a necessary fever of baseball enthusiasm. The team was a roster full of spark plug youngsters, like Manny Ramirez, Carlos Baerga, Albert Belle, and Sandy Alomar Jr., and seasoned veterans like Eddie Murry, Dennis Martinez, and Orel Hersheiser. Jacob's Field was a sold out arena for a record-breaking straight 455 games from 1995-2001, and the team's five consecutive Central Division Championship titles from 1995-1999 and two ALCS Championship titles, one in 1995 and one in 1997, strengthened Cleveland's spirit. The Browns had left the city without its beloved NFL team from 1996 to 1998 and when the Cavaliers left the Coliseum to play in the Gund Arena, Cleveland basketball was considered to be a corporate ticket. But baseball, baseball united the city.

I'd been going to games at Cleveland Stadium with my family ever since I was a little girl, although I didn't start out loving the sport. As my brother Josh recently reminded me, I used to attend Tribe games decked out in a huge straw hat that I wore so I could duck my head and read a book. It wasn't until I was in high school that I began to let baseball into my blood, to cloud up my judgment, and, in general, usurp my soul. When the Indians lost in six games to the Braves in the 1995 World Series, I cursed Chipper Jones' sneaky .400 on base percentage, Tom Glavine's MVP pitching performance. When they lost to the Marlins in the 1997 World Series, I raged when Jose Mesa allowed the game to go into extra innings and lamented the fact that Charlie Nagy was pinned with the eventual loss. And the most depressed I've ever been in my life was following the devastating first round of the post season in 1999 when my guys were up two games over the Red Sox only to have the boys from Boston take the next three, including one game where the Sox spanked the Tribe 21-7. Oh, the football score. It still shivers my timbers.

After years of watching the team rise and fall and rise again, only to fall again, of spending summers glued to the television or the radio, rarely missing a pitch, of sitting in seats all over the Jake, I am proud to say that I am a Cleveland Indians fan. To the core.

Two years ago, I moved from Cleveland to Boston and have endured the snide comments about my Jim Thome bobblehead doll, the odd looks when I walk down the street with my Chief Wahoo-plastered travel mug, the eye-rolling from friends when I sport my Indians t-shirt. At the Logan security checkpoint one Christmas, I even had an airport personnel point at my Indians winter hat and say, "Really?" I simply shrugged and said, "They're not a good team, but they're my team." True baseball fans know what I mean. Loving your team means putting up with taunts, jeers, pointing, heckling.

But baseball fans the world around know this, also: if you can't be with the team you love, you better hope you get to be with the Red Sox. Because, despite their effect on my mental health in October '99, the Sox are a team to be respected, not only because they are perennially fierce competition, but also because they are stuck in the Eastern Division. The crummy East. Unless you like pin stripes, ain't nothin' to love about your team being in the AL East. I mean, the Indians grew from an underdog position to reign over the likes of the Tigers, the Royals, and the Twins, but, c'mon, beating the Motor City Kitties isn't exactly a David and Goliath situation. The Western and Central Divisions are up-for-grabs every year because payrolls are fairly even which means each organization can afford the same level of talent. They put together teams that may be lacking in some respects, but the goal is to find equilibrium both in the clubhouse and on the field. Outside of the Indians' five-year dominance in the Central, no recent team has been a guaranteed division victor until late in the season. In the West, especially, fans up and down the coast have no idea who will dominate from year to year. And with the MLB's decision to emphasize divisional play, fans gear up for the games between rivals, games that will offer a crucial two-game swing in the standings.

No one knows this better than the Red Sox. Those poor, cursed bastards locked in more head-to-head combat with the Yankees than seems fair. Oh the Red Sox. They have to play catch-up all season and it's a game they simply cannot win. Because the Yankees aren't just any team. They are both God's Chosen Ones and the Evil Empire, the ideal and the bizarro-world version of a baseball team. George Steinbrenner simply has more money than anyone else invested in the sport so he can build the baseball master race, put a potential gold glove at every position, even lure one of the best short stops in the game to come play third base simply by showing him his very own pin striped jersey. No argument: the Yankees didn't need Alex Rodriguez on the team. Derek Jeter is an elite short stop, not to mention one of the prettiest jewels on the Yankee crown, so the acquisition of A-Rod cannot be taken seriously. Why sign A-Rod? Eh, why not? That's the attitude of the uber-team.

But it's not Alex Rodriguez' fault. It's not any of the Yankees' fault that they are The Team To Beat every year. No one can argue with the seven straight divisional titles, not to mention the thirty-nine ALCS victories and the twenty-six World Series rings since the inception of the American League in 1901. Despite numerous Bostonians roaming around wearing "Yankees Suck" t-shirts, the Yankees do not suck. Or, rather, the mechanics of their team do not suck. They have a lineup of seasoned hitters, a solid rotation, and one of the best closers in the history of the game. No, the Yankees do not suck. The fact that they have such a high salary capacity sucks. The fact that everything about them spells unfair advantages to the rest of baseball sucks. But that's not the Yankees' fault. They aren't breaking any rules. They're making the system work for them. Hey, if George Steinbrenner owned your team, wouldn't you think the never-ending string of Cy Young-caliber pitchers and Babe Ruth-like sluggers were just what your team, your city deserved? Of course you would.

As it stands now, you're either a Yankee fan or you're not. If you're not, you are, like Max and me and millions of others, guaranteed to suffer for your sport. And if you are a Yankee fan, you're not a baseball fan. If we go back to my original relationship analogy, I would contend that if your love has never been challenged, you're not really in love. It's not until you fear the worst that you can see the best. And while that may seem cliché, it's simply fact. Prior to this year's history-making pennant-race meltdown, the worst that's happened to Yankeefan over the last ten years is the three times they failed to advance in the post season all the way to the ALCS. Boo hoo.

What about the Red Sox? The last time they won the East was in 1990. Since then, they've had to battle their way into the post season five times as the wild card and have scratched their way to the ALCS three times. What fans have it harder than the Red Sox? And over the last few years that I've lived in Boston, nothing, not two Pats' Super Bowl victories, not Bruins playoff runs, not free Shakespeare on the Common, nor the Democratic National Convention has brought this city to life like a Red Sox post season. It's all anyone talks about in October. And, up until this year, it's always ended the same -- the run has come down to a face off with the dreaded Yankees with the same result: the Sox come up short while the Yankees steam roll through with the players' faces frozen in a bored grimace. Then what do the Sox fans do? They brace themselves for the wicked New England winter and vow that next year will be different.

Meanwhile, Yankeefan, who has expected this outcome from the beginning of the season, simply turns its attention to the World Series. The rest of the baseball world hibernates. Because who cares who wins the World Series? The fact that the Yankees are there, yet again, is a turn off. I would go as far as to say that ALCS games between Boston and New York are more anticipated, more watched than the World Series because what's exciting about the same old team representing the American League? Nothing. Last year, I remember the networks pulling for a Red Sox/Cubs match-up in the World Series and when neither underdog team advanced past their league series, it was a severe disappointment to everyone outside of the Yankees and Marlins organizations. Who even won? I'm sure I didn't watch a single game.

Of course, this year, things ended quite differently. Not only did the Red Sox de-throne the almighty Yankees, they did it with a dramatic flair. With the Sox down three games to none, they did the unthinkable: the won four in a row to become the first baseball team in the history of the game ever to do so and won the American League pennant in the process. Oh, and they also capped off this comeback during a road trip to the Bronx.

During Game 7, I was in a bar in Boston's South End listening to a few guys heckle Johnny Damon. Damon was having one of the worst offensive series in his career, hitting less than .100, true, but his defense had been spot-on and he was a player who deserved fan loyalty and support. His numbers during the regular season were more than solid. Boasting a .304 batting average and a .380 on base percentage, not to mention his 20 home runs and 94 RBIs, Damon's struggles in the ALCS were simply out of character. But these guys, well, they were groaning about Damon being up to bat with the bases loaded. "Just who we want in there!" one of them jeered. Finally, I swiveled around to face them and said, "Ya'll need to have some love in your heart for Johnny. He's having a rough time right now, but he's a great player and should lay off." The words were barely out of my mouth before Damon hit the first pitch he saw over the right field wall at Yankee Stadium. Gettysburg Address. Four score.

The Sox were already on top, thanks to a David Ortiz home run in the first inning, but Damon's grand slam in the second and two-run homer in the fourth were more than good enough to get immediate apologies from the guys at the bar and prove to everyone that clutch plays can come from anywhere, slumps can be snapped, good players will rise to the occasion.

Clearly, the 2004 Red Sox clubhouse is full of clutch players. Curt Schilling's performance in Game 6 was beyond inspiring. Tim Wakefield's "What's good for the team..." mentality should be highlighted in all youth sports. And as my brother said last Monday after Big Papi kept his team alive for the second game in a row, "So is David Ortiz just going to be the new mayor of Boston or what?" Well, the new ALCS MVP, for sure!

There was a moment during Game 4 at Fenway that defined the entire series for me, a moment where I decided it didn't matter what happened because, regardless of the final score, I knew the Sox and their fans were the scrappiest sons of bitches who'd ever enjoyed the game. In the third inning, Alex Rodriguez hit a two-run home run off Derek Lowe that sailed over the Green Monster and out onto Landsdowne Street. Before he'd even run all the way around the bases, a fan outside Fenway flung the ball back over the wall with enough force to land it right by Johnny Damon in center field. Damon took one look at that ball and chucked it back out onto the street. And just as quickly, a fan returned the favor. Finally, an umpire went over and pocketed the ball. Because that, ladies and gents, could've gone on all night, and it probably would have without interference from the officials. Nothing says defiance like the Red Sox. The team, the fans, they didn't care the Yankees were close to sealing the deal with another ALCS victory. They didn't care about stats or scoreboard. They cared about getting rid of that home run ball. Don't leave it on my front porch. Don't leave it outside my door. We won't have it. Not any of it. We won't take that crap, not here in Boston.

That's the attitude that won the Red Sox their first American League pennant in eighteen years and earned them a spot in sports history. That's the attitude that should make baseball fans all over the world redefine what it means to believe.

 

Recently, I pulled out an old tape of a game from August 2001 where the Indians overcame a 12-0 deficit against the Mariners to win in 11 innings. 2001 was the year where the Mariners temporarily stole the Yankees' thunder as The Greatest Team in Baseball because of their amazing 116-45 record, the power of their small-ball game strategy, and a bullpen that seemed impenetrable. And while the Mariners were on their way up, the Indians were on a fast descent. Even though they had some powerful bats in the lineup and the best double-play combination in the game with gold glovers Roberto Alomar at second base and Omar Vizquel at short stop, the pitching staff was full of holes. Maybe that's because then-manager Charlie Manuel was most successful in his major league career as the Indians' hitting coach, not as a guy who understood how to use pitcher most effectively or maybe it was because the staff consisted of tiring pitchers like Chuck Finley, Charlie Nagy, and Dave Burba and relative greenies like C.C. Sabathia and Bartolo Colon, but it was fair to say that the Tribe's precarious season could be visually represented by the jerky motions of reliever John Rocker.

But that day in August 2001 lives in my memory as the game to which all other games should be compared. By the third inning, the Mariners were pile driving the Tribe 12-0 -- and they were doing it at the Jake. By the time the remaining fans stood to sing, "Take me out to the ball game," the score was 14-2. But then something happened. Little by little the Indians chipped away at the Mariners' shatterproof lead until Omar Vizquel hit a two-out, 3-2 count triple off Kazuhiro Sasaki down the right field baseline and into the corner. The loaded bases cleared and the game was tied.

Whodathunkit?

That goes to show that no game is over until the last out because the Indians, the same team the ESPN commentators had chuckled over during the entire broadcast, the same franchise that inspired the film Major League, had scored five runs in the 9th inning. Oh, and they scored all five of those runs with two out.

When I re-watched that game, I decided it is these sorts of inspirational stories that make loving the game so worthwhile. The Red Sox' unbelievable come-from-behind victory in four straight games against the Evil Empire is even more of a reason to remain committed to the sport. These glorious moments are what make our hearts surge, our bodies shake, our mouths go dry. We cheer because we love. We boo because we love. We bear witness because we love. And even if our love comes up short "this" year, there will be "next" year. Miracles really can happen. Heroes can emerge. The impenetrable can be penetrated. And fans across the country have clung with equal abandon to their team's success and failures.

Now. Yankeefan. You've just been handed the worse loss in baseball history, the curse has been reversed, and it happened in your house. Right now, you're hurt. You feel betrayed. You are stunned. These are all new feelings for you, I know, but don't worry. Daddy Steinbrenner will go out and buy baby a shiny new pitching staff in the off-season, maybe a few new pretty faces for the outfield. Whatever baby wants. Daddy can buy back your love.

Has the Evil Empire been destroyed? I'd like to say yes, but I have to say no. Next year the American League East will still be the same bitch of a division it always has been. But maybe the Yankees won't step onto the playing field with the same smugness, the same lip-glossed pout, the same bored predetermination that they are The Team to Beat.

But, then again, they are the Yankees. It'll take more than this year's humiliation to destroy that team. And in the meantime, Yankeefan will go through the post-season withdrawal so well known by the rest of us and come back next year as obnoxious as ever. So, Yankeefan, let me say this: you don't know what you're cheering for. You don't know what it means to win. You've picked an easy team to lust after, a sure thing. Do yourself a favor and become a Twins fan for a season or a Mets fan, for the love of God. And until you do that, until you expose your heart to the real thing, don't you dare try to say you love baseball. Because you don't. You don't know what love is if you're not grown-up enough to make yourself vulnerable. But my guess, Yankeefan, is you're not mature enough to know how right I am. The rest of the baseball fans around you know I'm right, though. And we feel sorry for you, we lament your flashy sets of World Series rings, your team's God-blessed success. Red Sox fans, Indians fans know what you don't: you learn more often through failures, through heartbreak, through hard times, which, I guess, gives the average Yankeefan an emotional baseball IQ of about a two-year-old. None of your wins, none of your rings will ever mean as much to you as this series has meant to the Red Sox. Cradle your ignorance, if you must, but you're missing the entire point of love.

I Know Differently

 As the sun rises over the horizon, I pull my collar up to keep my neck warm from the chill.  I'm not the sort who prefers the cold but I am the sort who prefers routine and ritual and this daily trek to see you is part of that.  Sometimes, though, the rain does keep me away.  Cold, though, cold I can confront, mind-over-matter, and even make a game of seeing the smoke of my breath cut through the air as I exhale.  This morning's frost makes my breath crystalize but what brings hope into my soul is that cut of sunbeam, slicing through the frigid morning.

Sunrise makes me think of you.

But you already know that.

You know everything there is to know.

Every day -- well, most every day -- I make my way here, to this spot, to tell you everything, though, just in case you're less able to know me as well as you did once before.  I come to this bench with the tiny silver placard with your name engraved on it and that heartbreaking reminder of the date you were born and the date that you died.  Our son, he doesn't like to say you died, even after these two years since it happened. He likes to say that you left us but I know that's not what you did at all.  He and I got into a bit of an argument over it not that long ago, when I said it was insulting to say you'd left us, like you'd said you were going to the corner store for cigarettes and milk and just never came home.  I said it wasn't good for your grandchildren to hear him talk like that and he'd slammed his fist on the table and said he'd talk about you leaving however he saw fit.  We had an awful time sorting that out.  I mean, you probably remember -- we talked about it after and, to me, you were right there beside me during the whole... event.  I like to think you took him aside, too, because he calmed down quicker than normal and even came with me on my walk to see you the next day.  Remember?  We just sat on the bench in the cold, our hands shoved in our pockets, staring at the spot of ground at our feet.  It was nice, though.  Calm.  It felt so serene.  And after awhile, his elbow jutted over and tapped my arm.

"I'll make you a grilled cheese when we get back to the house," he said.

Made me laugh because he'd never made me so much as a bowl of cereal before, but you taught him your grilled cheese trick and I think that he meant it as a peace offering.

Most days, though, I come here alone.

Today, I'm alone.

It takes me about seven minutes to walk to this spot in the park, your favorite spot, or so your granddaughter decided.  We let her decide, within reason, of course.  She picked this spot and us "elders" gave it the green-light, and we worked with the city to install this bench with the placard on it.  It's here in that clearing where you and our granddaughter liked to play Spirit-Fairies, at least that's what she told us.  With me, she always makes me act out a farm animal or a circus animal while she acts out the role of farmer or lion tamer or whatever suits her game the best on any given day.  Anyway, sounds like what she played with you was more specific.  She said that you'd chase around this clump of trees and jump over the flower beds and say things like, "Abracadabra, green grass!"  Just silly things like that.  Well, we had to approve her idea to put your memorial bench here after all of that. We just hoped you liked it OK.

I think you do, though, because whenever I come here, I swear I smell your perfume, just faintly.  Some days, I could swear I heard your laughter, especially once those flowers bloom.  I much prefer my visits to you on those warmer days.

But, well, I come even in the cold because it's only a seven minute walk and it's good for me to have this routine.  I was always a man of routine, as you know, but I do fear that tendency has...advanced since you died.  You were always the one who brought my spontaneity out.  Before you, I didn't think I was anything but rules and order and this-after-that.  But you were so the opposite of that, I think we balanced each other out.  Now that you're in spirit -- that's what I try to tell our son to say, just like you taught it to me before you died -- now that you're in spirit, I feel you with me but I also feel your personality dropping away.  You warned me this could happen and so I am doing my best to roll with it but it's strange to have this ritual of talking with you every day and still knowing that it's less you as time goes on.  It's still you, but...  How did you teach it to me?  You're less ego, more soul.  I only think I understand what that means except that maybe I kind of feel it these days.  

Every day -- well, most days -- at sunrise, I come here to this place to catch you up, just like I promised I would, but I also do it because it's nice to see you in every season -- I can't explain how I know it's you when I see you except to say that I know that it's you.  It's why I still come, even in the cold.  It's why I'll always come, until I cross into spirit, too.  

Until then, I will keep telling your children and grandchildren as many stories about you as I can think of, even if they've heard them a hundred times over.  I will bring you into every conversation I have and I will resist any individual who says you're not here anymore.  I know differently.  Even on the coldest days, I know differently.  

I see you in every sunrise, after all -- just like you promised I would.  

First line by Susie Bowers

2023

Virtual Tip Jar: Venmo @sarahwolfstar

Forward to The Breakup Year

I met Tom in September 2005 at a bar called The Burren in Somerville, Massachusetts.  I was twenty-six years old, he was twenty-four.  Later, you'll read the story about how we met.  You'll read a lot about our story.  There aren't enough pages to tell you the entire thing -- what you will mostly read about is how our relationship ended in November 2014.  But you'll get a good snapshot. 

I didn't set out to write a book about my relationship with Tom.  I didn't set out to write a book at all.  The essays, poems, and pieces of fiction in this book are part of a yearly blog project I began six years ago in response to my first "Tom divorce."  Ours was a complicated relationship, as you'll learn, but when we'd had our first significant falling out in October 2010, I needed something to redirect me, so I gave myself a challenge -- a New Year's Resolution -- to write every day, which I did, starting January 1, 2011.  By the end of the year, some unexpected things happened.  First, Tom and I made up, and also, people were reading what I was writing.  They were asking, "What's next?"  So I did another blog in 2012, this one all fiction, and another in 2013, this one were friends gave me "three things" I used those to write something, another in 2014, a choose-your-own adventure novel, and then in 2015, my goal was to use music to inspire my writing every day.  My relationship with Tom ended about a month and a half before the start of that blog, which created something of the perfect storm.  As you read, you'll learn the importance of music to me and the importance of music to Tom, a very diverse and talented musician.  You'll learn about the importance of music and creativity in our relationship.  And you'll also learn what I learned the hard way every single day -- music can be emotionally gruelling.  The result:  my Singalong 2015 blog turned into a public journal of sorts, a place where I worked out a lot of the stuff churning through my brain.  By the end of the year, I'd written a book about Tom, and I still don't know exactly how I feel about that.

Recently, I was reading a blog post I'd written back in August 2014 about how social media was completely changing the definition of "norms" in social interactions and in it, I wrote about chronic over-sharers, stating:

"I know for a personal fact it's possible to be going through hell and keep it offline.  Airing your sad or dirty laundry to the masses probably isn't going to heal you the way you want.  At least I know it wouldn't heal me.  

I was chatting with my friend Elliott the other day about how I was writing this post and how when I was fairly young, my mother had warned me, pretty sternly, to be very very careful about what I chose to put in writing because you cannot take that back.  What you put in writing is forever.  You can say things in the heat of any moment and while those things can certainly have a lasting effect, the memory of how that shit went down will change over time until it completely fades or has distorted enough that its reliability isn't so grand anymore.  But the things you write down can be read over and over and over again.  And things you write on the internet?  There's no eraser big enough to destroy that evidence.  Think about that before you post.  This is your legacy."

When I stumbled across this passage I'd written, I stopped and thought about how I still agreed with these ideas while also recognizing I had gone against that grain and gotten very personal in the 2015 blog.  My intention wasn't to "air dirty laundry" -- it was to make sense of the information, both rational and not, swirling in my brain.  It was helpful and healing and progressive and forward-moving.  And not just for me -- first one friend then another then another came to me, messaged me, commented right there on Facebook about how what I was writing was helping them get through difficult breakups, divorces, and other similar situations.  As the blog went along, I felt easier and freer about being completely honest -- naming names and bringing specificity into the picture.  You'll notice I don't start that way on January 1st.  It takes several months before I stop dancing around the issue and dive right in.  That's the authenticity of respect I have for those who are involved in this story, even Tom.  Especially Tom.  When 2015 began, I was truly hurting.  I was making big life decisions.  I was digging deep and looking for understanding and growth and the power to keep evolving.  In all sad honesty, I had no reason to believe he was doing similar work at all -- in fact, everything I heard from our many mutual friends and acquaintances was that he was continuing on the same destructive path -- and that also broke my heart.  

I say all this now as a way to prepare you for what you're about to read -- how it was written and why.  It will feel disjointed at times and it will change tone quickly.  It will repeat some information and also likely leave out things you wish you knew.  It's the modern day equivalent of reading my journal as I processed the end of the most important relationship of my life to date.  But the reason I wanted to pull the relevant blog entries and put them into book form is because they were helpful to me and helpful to others so maybe they could be helpful to you.  The universality of breakups is at the core here and even though the details of your story will be different than mine, my hope is that what I was thinking on January 1st versus what I was thinking on December 31st will show the possibility of growth and healing and change.  

I got through this "Breakup Year" with the help of countless friends and loved ones, a daily yoga practice, a daily writing practice, and listening to the podcast You Made It Weird with Pete Holmes.  

So let's get into it.

U is for Unbelievable

And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make...

Thanks for a great 2016 season, Cleveland Indians.

Last night was one of the most insane, jaw-dropping, intense, raw, beautiful, unbelievable baseball games I have ever witnessed.  There was nobody at the corner of Carnegie and Ontario in Downtown Cleveland that didn't know that the Indians had to keep the Cubs off the scoreboard in the early innings, a job that fell almost squarely on the shoulders of Corey Kluber, who'd been nothing short of the undeniable ace he's known as -- rock solid in his first two World Series starts.  If Kluber could pull off the greatest magic trick a major league pitcher was capable of wowing a fanbase, then the Indians would likely cruise into the elusive fourth win, making them this year's champion.  If only.

Corey Kluber, however, proved to be human after all and the strain of his third start on the high pressure World Series stage on second round of three days rest -- unheard of in modern baseball -- got the better of him and his fourth pitch of the night was rocketed to the centerfield bleachers by Dexter Fowler for a solo home run.  In an ordinary game, that would have tempered the life in the ballpark, but not the case last night as an overwhelming presence of Cubs fans had descended on Progressive Field.  If I were to believe the Fox Broadcast, there were barely any Indians fans there at all.  As I listened to Tom Hamilton call the game on WTAM1100, I could distinctly hear "LET'S GO CUBS!" being chanted in the stands.  It broke my heart a little.  Could we not even get full value of our homefield advantage on this already tenuous night?  There's something wrong about the tickets being so expensive that only the richest fans could be in the ballpark -- but, well, that's an issue for another day.

For the purposes of last night's game, the crowd reactions to umpire calls were muddled and mixed, half-strength for both teams doing their best to off the underdog label once and for all.

But as I watched Corey Kluber struggle -- and then later the unshakeable Andrew Miller get shook -- I felt this overwhelming blend of emotions that was a little bit of awe, a little bit of oof, and a whole lot of love.  These guys were literally trying to fight a state-of-the-art uber-combat unit with a rock and stick.  To call the Cubs an "underdog" in the same sentence as you call the Indians the same is a gross misuse of that term.  To say you're shocked and wowed by the tenacity of that scrappy-dappy team from Chicago's North Side is the equivalent of you gloating that Target had a better Black Friday than the Mom & Pop Shop across the street.  Yeah, no kidding.  It would be pretty absurd if the roles were reversed.

Yet that's almost what Cleveland did:  upset the professional sports world by being the team nobody picked for greatness winning it all.

But, you know what?  I realize the Cubs claimed that ultimate prize...  But, to me, this feels like the biggest Indians victory of all time.  With the score a whopping 5-1 in the fifth inning, I literally sat on my couch with tears streaming down my face.  I watched this team I loved so dearly desperately trying to bail water out of their sinking ship and I thought to myself, "I can't be in public tomorrow.  I'll take the day off.  I'll hide out."  But then something happened:  luck swung our way in the bottom of the 6th when two Indians runs scored off starter-turned-reliever Jon Lester's wild pitch.  5-3.  The joy was temporary as Cubs catcher Dave Ross hits a solo homer in his last game before retirement, knocking that score to 6-3.  What we needed was a miracle.

And guess what happened next.

Bottom of the eight inning, Brandon Guyer hits a double that brings home Jose Ramirez.  6-4.  And then the most beautiful thing I ever saw in my life came right after:  center field Rajai Davis, who'd been fantastic defensively all postseason but struggled mightily with the bat in his hands, pulled off the old Pedro Cerrano Hollywood unthinkable drama of smashing a two-run homerun off the unbeatable Cubs closer, Aroldis Chapman.  

TIE SCORE. 6-6.

I was dying.  I was dead.  What I was actually doing was jumping up and down and screaming to wake the dead.  Sorry, roommates.  The last time I screamed that loudly during a baseball game was the epic come-from-behind tying run in that 2001 instant-classic game against the Mariners I wrote about a few days ago.  But this was Game 7 of the World Series.  Once The Ball That Davis Hit went out, something joyful snapped on inside of me.  Suddenly I knew, no matter the outcome of this night, I was going to want to talk to every single person I encountered in the foreseeable future about this game.  About the importance of never giving up, no matter the odds stacked against you.  

And after the conclusion of the scoreless ninth inning (almost not the case on what looked for half a second like a Jason Kipnis solo homerun that hooked foul) -- that's when the rains came.

Now after midnight, the water slashing down from the heavens was visible on my muted television while Hammy lamented in an uffish voice about this stall in momentum and I watched with newfound disbelief as the tarp was rolled out over the field.  At this point, my sister-in-law Jen and I were deep into texting, her husband/my older brother Casey long ago asleep along with her three young sons, and so I was her pipeline for keeping up with the action.  Later, my baseball soulbrother (that's a thing, right?) Shane chimed in and the messages were flying about the action.  My heart pounded out of my chest.  Would they have to suspend the game?  Could they finish it tonight?  Fifteen minutes later, the tarp was rolled back up and the 10th inning was a lightening strike of Cubs players taking advantage of pitcher Bryan Shaw's return to the mound after the unexpected break.  They put two more runs on the board before starter-turned-reliever Trevor Bauer came on and cleanly ended the inning.

Bottom of the 10th, the Indians had another steep mountain to climb -- we're always climbing, always! -- when Rajai Davis put the ball in play to score Brandon Guyer from second, getting us within one run of the unthinkable upset.  But we simply ran out of gas as Michael Martinez grounded out softly to third and the Cubs erased 108 years of anguish for their high-paying fans as they mobbed the mound.

The Indians did not win it.  The Indians did not win it.  Oh my god, the Indians did not win it.

At least not according to the scoreboard.

But these are the facts as I see them:

Fact #1:  With the injuries of key Indians players plaguing the team before they even got to the ALDS, no one -- no one -- picked Cleveland to make it past the Red Sox, let alone make it all the way to the World Series.  And even once they got there, still, there was no love.  I muted the television broadcasts and listened to the radio one instead, but I was dismayed how little they showed Indians fans in the crowd, even when the team was playing at home.  That's just rude, national media, seriously...

Fact #2:  The Indians are a small market team with small market funds which means they have to use wily and cunning to get anywhere and where that got them was Game 7 of the World Series.  They have to play as a team, united, one unanimous voice.  They have to be willing to play small ball -- they have to be willing to chip away, not depend on the longball, to get on base and move the runners any way possible.

Fact #3:  Terry Francona pulled off more miracles in this uncharted waters of no big names and a plague of injuries by being strategic, clever, and brazen and got away with more gambles than a team like Cleveland has ever experienced before.  In Tito We Trusted.  Forever.

Fact #4:  Asking three starting pitchers to work on three days rest on the biggest stage of their careers was incredibly daunting and incredibly risky but our guys said, "OK," zero hesitation, and did their best, along with the support of one of the most reliable bullpens I've ever witnessed.

Fact #5:  THEY HAD FUN.  THEY DID NOT QUIT.  GOONIES NEVER SAY DIE.  They hustled.  They were invested.  They were scrappy.  They fought and fought and fought.

And that's really the most important part of this story.

Whoddathunkit that an Indians loss in Game 7 of the World Series would feel so oddly uplifting?

Before the game last night, I was talking to my friend Becky, telling her about how I was starting to wonder if it truly was better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all...  By the end of last night's game I was convinced, for the first time in my long, surly, wary life that in the end, love was actually worth it.

from Homefield Advantage: One Cleveland Indians Fan's 2016 Postseason Scrapbook

Boo

Throughout the course of my life, I have fortunately had many great, sage role models, folks wise beyond reason, who’ve served as teachers, mentors, friends, and family. When I think back over all of the people who’ve taught me the most, though, there is one that stands out. Her name was Boo and she was a dark tabby cat who lived with my family for nineteen years.

Boo was right out of kittenhood when she came to stay with us. I was probably around five-years-old and I was so excited for her arrival. Our first family pet, Muffin, also a dark tabby cat, had passed away suddenly after running head first into our grandfather clock — you can’t make this stuff up. And while we missed Muffin, my mother, a music teacher, had a former student who needed someone to take care of her cat while she went to work on a cruise line for two weeks. I’m sure my mom thought, sure, easy gig, it’ll make the kids happy to have a pet for a bit.

And so Boo came to stay.

Boo was the name she came with, also — her real name was actually “Booshwa,” slang for bourgeois, though my mom’s student said she thought Booshwa “might be a bad word,” and so she changed it for our delicate sensibilities, youngins that my brothers and I were. Boo turned out to be far more appropriate since what this cat actually did was scare the shit out of us on a daily basis. Even my father, a six-foot-three man, was afraid of her. She still had her claws and she had an awfully terrifying growl that was frequently followed by a spitting hiss. She liked to hide at the bottom of the stairs and come flying out from nowhere to attack anyone who dared come down. She especially hated men since, we later learned, my mother’s student lived with her boyfriend who used to shut Boo in the closet when he was left alone with her.

This cat was a nightmare pet for a home with three small children — my older brother Casey being probably 7 and my younger brother Joshua being 3. But my father, especially, was bound and determined to win this beast over. So he spent time hanging out near her, inching ever closer to the point where she allowed him to pet her, and before you knew it, my dad and Boo were the best of friends.

I’m not entirely sure how long this process took since the original plan for us to have Boo for two weeks stretched into a third week and then a fourth and then a few more months as her owner kept returning to the cruise line for more gigs until finally there was no more discussion about when this ornery cat might leave our home. I’m not sure her original owner officially gave her up, but she certainly became ours — and that cat was in charge.

She chilled out on the sneak attacks but would still, on occasion, express her displeasure at our youthful exuberance. She liked to sit on top of the refrigerator and swipe her paw at unsuspecting passers-by. She found a crawl space in the basement that allowed her to peer down on anyone doing laundry so you’d get that creepy sensation that someone was watching and get a real jolt if you turned around and caught a glimpse of those shiny cat eyes reflecting at you. And, man oh man, don’t leave chicken on your plate or she will eat it. She’d jump right onto the table and snatch whatever she wanted and which one of us was going to tell her she couldn’t? Boo was a tough old broad who didn’t take any shit.

And, oh my, did we love her.

She learned to love us all, too, but none more so than my father. Just like Muffin, the cat who came before her, she liked to sleep in his briefcase and whenever he was home, she was never too far out of reach. She followed him everywhere and they became the best of friends, which was also a miracle as far as my father was concerned since he’d grown up on a farm where cats were outdoor animals who lived in the barn. He’d agreed to have a cat in the house because his tiny blonde daughter (hey, that’s me!) wanted one so, but he had not been jazzed about Muffin or Boo coming to live with us. But seeing the loving bond he formed with this cat who’d gotten her start by terrorizing us was a beautiful thing.

After we’d had Boo in our home for awhile, the decision was made that it was time for us to get a kitten. We’d never had a kitten before, since both Muffin and Boo were adult cats by the time we got them, so my now six-year-old brain was totally wow’d. She was a dark tortoiseshell kitten who purred from the word go and was my constant companion. I named her Bubbles and she was one of the early loves of my life.

While it was an easy fit for Bubbles and me, we all worried how Boo might respond to this…intruder. But an interesting thing happened: Boo adopted Bubbles as if she were her own kitten, grooming her and cuddling with her and showing her the ropes. Maybe it was a sign that Boo was learning to love and trust, something none of us were sure she’d be able to do when she first came to live with us.

When my father was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in March 1986, everything changed as he spent more and more time in the hospital. My mother’s parents came to stay with us so she could spend time with her husband as they battled this aggressive disease that my brothers and I were too young to understand. Boo become even more devoted to Bubbles during this time, so it only became that much more heartbreaking when we discovered that Bubbles, my beloved kitten, had a tumor growing in her throat and we had to make the difficult decision to put her to sleep.

And a week after we buried her in the backyard next to Muffin, my father died, too.

After those heartbreaking back to back losses, all of our lives changed, even Boo’s. The two friends she cherished most on the planet were gone in the blink of an eye and I don’t think she ever got over it. We had many other cats come to live with us over the course of her life (and you better believe she outlived them all), but she never bonded with any of them like she did with Bubbles. She did love my mother and my brothers and me — especially my older brother Casey — but it wasn’t the same as her devotion to my father. It was like she knew to give just enough not to get hurt — that she’d learned her lesson the hard way. But she was a survivor, so she continued on, stronger than ever, a real matriarch in our household.

And as my childhood rolled on, Boo became more and more in charge of, well, everything. When we had parties, she’d sit in the middle of the kitchen table and survey those coming and going. Better not try and pet her — she will stare you down. And don’t leave cake out, because she’ll definitely eat it. Even if she has to knock it off the table or chew through the box. One time, she even managed to open a cupboard, climb onto a shelf and gnaw through a box of Twinkies because her sweet tooth was not to be stopped. We had to hide stuff like that in high shelves or in the oven or the microwave and I can only imagine how the wheels in her brain would spin as she tried to figure out a way around these cruel obstacles to her frosting addiction. Outside of that undeniable sweet tooth, she was tough as nails, strict as hell, but totally in love with our family. She took care of us more than we took care of her and I still feel her influence on my life to this day.

When she was maybe thirteen, we discovered a large mass growing on her back, so we took her to our vet. He told us that lumps on a dog were usually nothing — but lumps on a cat were often trouble — and he gave us the sad news that Boo had a malignant tumor that he could remove but her prognosis was still pretty dire. My mother agreed to have the surgery done, anyway, and a miraculous thing happened: when we brought Boo home, what she did was spend all day laying in sunny spots, listening to classical music. She loved classical music. So if we put a radio with classical music in a sunny spot, she’d lay with her head next to the speaker, purring audibly as she worked to heal herself post-surgery. It was truly unreal. And the vet was shocked at her next check up to see that Boo was doing even better than she had been doing before the tumor was discovered.

That tumor returned two more times over the next few years, each time with my mother opting for the surgery, each time with Boo recovering in record time. Sunshine and classical music were her cure-alls. Those images of her basking in the warmth will never be erased from my brain.

As she got older, Boo developed another odd habit — she’d sometimes wander through the dark house at night making the most mournful, yelping, unnatural sounds. I always wondered if she was being visited by my father or by Bubbles or by other forces from the Great Beyond. There was something so pungent about hearing her cry like that and if I could, I’d go to her and cuddle with her until she calmed down. It was a sadness that sticks with me just as much as her ability to go to the sun to heal.

I realized when I sat down to write about her today that I don’t have a single photo of her. But I can see her, clear as day, in my mind’s eye and it warms my heart to think of this complex beast of a cat. She taught me so much about life and survival and love and fear and growth and adaptation. She was a true friend, a guardian, a protective force. I’ve known many cats in my life but there will never be one like Boo. She came into our lives for a very concrete reason: to be an example of how to overcome. I loved her very much and was always sad I didn’t get to say a final goodbye to her before my mother made the necessary choice to put her to sleep, ailing as she was in her ancient years. But like all great loves, I carry her with me in my heart, in my mind, in my soul, and always will, still learning from her example, still relishing in telling the story of her life.

Boo was one of the greats. She was an epic tale trapped in a body with a twitching, gray and black stripped tail. I am thankful for the many years she was part of our family and still think of her as a role model. I certainly go to the sunny spot whenever I need to heal and never turn down a piece of cake. All in loving memory of the cat that would have been Booshwa if the fates had allowed it.

_____________________________

From the Inspired in 2017 blog project.

Virtual Tip Jar: Venmo @sarahwolfstar

The Transformation of Maria

When I was a child, I used to get strep throat a lot.  As soon as the strep cleared, I basically contracted it right over again, and so the procedure of fever, doctor, diagnosis, crash on the couch for a few days became normal.  I wasn't one of those kids who was psyched to miss school -- I loved school and had to be convinced to stay home on these contagious days.  My mother sated me by renting a movie of my choice to watch while she went to work and my brothers went to school.  The movie I asked for over and over and over was West Side Story.  I'd been raised on the cannon of musicals -- Fiddler on the Roof, The Music Man, Oklahoma!, Phantom of the Opera, Gypsy, Annie, The Sound of Music, and more -- and I loved them all.  But West Side Story spoke to my soul -- it was far and away my favorite.  It's a long movie -- two and a half hours -- but I watched it over and over, especially once my mother caved and bought a copy so she wouldn't have to keep renting it.  I knew every line of dialogue, every lyric of every song, and could mimic most of the dance moves.  I had a white nightgown with a fanciful red sash that I would wear, even though Maria wasn't the character I wanted to emulate.  It was fiery, passionate, witty, strong Anita that incurred all my love.  I wanted to be Anita, even though I wasn't drawn to Bernardo, preferring the Jets' leader Riff for a leading man.  For all my deep love of the movie, I wanted to mix everything up:  the Jets were clearly the better gang to be in because, well, Riff, and also when you're a Jet you're a Jet all the way -- there was brotherhood, togetherness, support.  Maybe the Sharks were like that offscreen, but they didn't have any songs telling me so.  Meanwhile, the women who dated these Sharks were clearly superior to the passive arm candy women who hung around with the Jets.  Jets boys, Sharks girls.  That's the way I favored it.

And I loved the story, I loved the way the music forced me to get up and dance.  Even those days when I was home sick, I'm certain I couldn't lay there passively during "America."  I loved the flirtatious way Anita showed her power, proved her independence, sealed her love for Bernardo (something I could appreciate even though Nardo wasn't my favorite).  I loved her sheer strength -- her protective-without-smothering mother hen nature in regards to Maria, her ability to be open minded in the face of tragedy.  The scene where Anita discovers Maria is planning to run away with Tony, who just killed Bernardo, Maria's brother, in a knife fight, shows her human capacity to see beyond her own mind, her own pain, and straight into the heart of Maria, no matter how much she may disagree.  Anita is the woman I wanted to be, even as a very small child.  

Just writing that sentence now tells me that it's arguable that Anita is exactly who I grew up to be.

But before I could shape into an adult, I first wanted to emulate this character, I wanted to play her on stage.  I have always loved music and performance and it was my very specific dream to play Anita in West Side Story.  I carried this dream in the pulsing beats of my heart.  I carried it, that is, until I was in second grade and some classmate of mine's dad came to talk to us about his career as a dentist.  I can still remember him sitting at the front of our classroom in this strange elementary school I attended until the end of third grade where there were shelves separating the classrooms instead of walls.  I remember my classmates and me sitting around on the floor, staring up at this man, who, at the end of his talk, asked us what we wanted to be when we grew up.  Hands shot up.  "Teacher!"  "Doctor!"  "Nurse!" my classmates yelled.  "Actress!" I yelled.  The man's eyes flashed when I said that -- and he laughed, a full belly laugh.  Now that I'm an adult, I know that his laughter could have come from many different sources, but as a small child, I heard that laughter as what a fool.  It was the first time in my life someone had ever suggested I couldn't be something -- that a dream I had was silly or unrealistic or unattainable.  It's a moment that stuck with me as one of the most vivid of my childhood.  I try to keep that in mind when I'm hanging out with children -- that what adults say to them matter.  That how you respond to them matters.  In all fairness, that man didn't entirely crush my dreams.  I did go on to do some theatre and other performance -- and still do today -- but my pursuit of that dream, that dream that I'd become an actress, died that day.  I picked something else (hey, writer sounds good!), but it was a pivotal moment during the fragile development of my sense of self.  I was no Tobias Fünke, oblivious to how ridiculous my dream might be.  I was wholly aware that I'd said the "wrong" thing. It's funny -- I don't remember finding out that Santa isn't real, but the day I found out my dream was shit, that I remember in great detail. 

But maybe I'm doing one better than that dream, since Anita became a role model for me beyond the context of West Side Story.  She represents many pieces of me that are in play today.  

I had the exceptional opportunity to watch this favorite movie of mine at the Somerville Theatre in Davis Square just last night and the experience was just beyond all expectations.  My friend Shira came with me, which is always a delight, but as the movie began -- as the overture played -- I suddenly felt very emotional, like my childhood was about to be projected onto the big screen.  That my dream of the past was going to play out in my present and shine a light into my future.  The opening shot, panning over New York City while a call and response of whistles echoes over the vastness of the place, shook me up.  I laid my head on Shira's shoulder and I said, "I'm so glad you're here."  Shira, who just gets me, smiled.  "I'm glad I'm here, too," she said.

My insides bubbled.  I had to remind my body to relax.  My lips moved along with much of the dialogue and most of the songs.  I'd discovered this portal to another time and the joy that discovery brought me can't be described with words.

Of course, as I watched this classic film, whose story is famously based on Romeo and Juliet, it also became painfully clear how little has changed in the world -- how turf wars and unscrupulous cops and closed minds and miscommunication pave the way for conflict.  How even the people who want to change things or want to help or who try to talk sense into others are mostly powerless to stop the violence or the struggle.  As I watched it last night, my mind was busy at work, understanding why this movie had resonated with me so much as a child, long before any of these bigger, more adult truths were something I could understand.  As the movie moved into the much darker second act, I thought about how it made sense for me to feel so connected to a story about star-crossed lovers, characters who suffer lost life, be it their own or someone they hold dear, and it swished through my stomach how much more I could relate to these elements now as an adult. 

And as the movie hurdled into its final, incredibly powerful scene, that's when the emotional wheels came right off the wagon:

"You all killed [him]...  not with bullets and guns, but with hate.  Well, now I can kill, too.  Because now I have hate.  How many can I kill, Chino, before I have one bullet left for me?"

Here is Maria, in her coming of age moment.  You may recall that the first scene she's in, she's begging Anita to do something provocative with the white dress she's to wear to the dance.  Couldn't Anita lower the neckline or at least dye it red?  And here we are, in the final scene, with Maria finally in that red dress she longed for at the start.  It's an incredibly powerful scene.  Incredibly powerful.  I was afraid to turn my head or blink or move in any way for fear I might crumble straight away.  Maria, whose name means bitter.  Maria in the red dress, mourning and in pain, surrounded by stunned and heavy silence.  As the screen flashed "THE END," the packed house at the Somerville Theatre let out a breath it had been collectively holding.  But otherwise, no one moved.  No one.  Not until "Music by Leonard Bernstein and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim" flashed on the screen.  Then everyone applauded and I began to breath normally again.  I looked over at Shira who was looking back at me.  God, I was relieved to be sitting next to a person that I love in that moment.

But that final scene also reminded me of the last time I watched West Side Story in the company of people I loved.  It was May 2006 and there are lots of reasons why I know that.  The main one is that I wrote a poem about the experience and I always date my poems.  But I also know where I was in my own personal evolution -- it was an internal changing of the guard.  I was just getting over true love, right as I was becoming close friends with a boy named Tom who played in a cover band my friend Whitney and I liked to go see.  Whitney had a crush on Tom and that's sort of why we got into the habit of emailing with him during the week and it's how I got the idea to ask him to help me with a computer problem and it's what made him suggest we make a night out of it, including Whitney, and the two of them came to my first Somerville apartment on Sanborne Avenue in Union Square where Tom fixed my computer, introducing himself to my two roommates as "Tommy," which made Whitney and me giggle since we knew him as Tom and always had (later I would learn it was more common -- if not standard practice -- for him to introduce himself in the diminutive form of his name), and once my computer was fixed, we got some food and a bottle of Southern Comfort and we sat down to talk.  There was a picture of me with my recently lost love on display and Tom asked some questions and when I lamented the end of that road, Tom said, "Any man who has even had the chance to touch you is the luckiest man," something I found very sweet, though it raised the eyebrows on, well, everyone I told after the fact, especially since Whitney, who very publicly was into Tom, was sitting right next to him on the couch.  I just thought he was being kind.  A lot of other people thought he was falling in love.  I mean, it was over ten years ago -- who knows?  But that night, Tom was definitely trying to duck and dodge Whitney's crush (a confusing thing since he'd very recently participated in a photo school project of hers that lead to them taking -- very tasteful and frankly pretty awesome -- pictures in the shower together, which made Whitney wonder if theirs was a path leading somewhere), and, at the same time, reaffirm the many similarities he and I shared, including some of our favorite movies.  "You've never seen Mallrats?" Tom scoffed at Whitney as he pulled the DVD off my shelf and we put it right in the player.  And when that film ended a little after midnight, we returned to an earlier discussion we'd had about both Tom and my favorite musical West Side Story, another movie Whitney had never seen, and despite the late hour, Tom and I rushed to put it on.  Whitney loved the Leonardo DiCaprio Romeo and Juliet, so she simply had to see this classic update of that Shakespearean play.  As the overture played, Tom warned us:  "I always cry at the end," he said.  Sure, sure, I remember thinking.  But two hours and thirty minutes later, hand on a Bible, Tom was streaming tears down his face during Maria's final speech.  It was hard not to think of this endearing and beautiful memory I have of Tom while watching West Side Story last night.  It was hard not to have Maria's declaration of "Now I have hate, too," turn up the volume in my capacity to feel.

I don't hate Tom, I never could.  But the pain resonating in Maria's outburst -- that I understood better than I ever have before.

West Side Story is personal for me -- it's part of me.  Its existence in my life contributes to all that defines me as a human.  I love it with my whole heart, my whole mind, my whole being.  I'm still tingling from what I experienced last night and I will likely have more thoughts on the subject later.  But I couldn't wait to share with you what I had so far.

I'll leave you with the poem I wrote on May 2, 2006 about another mile-marker moment in my life facilitated by the magic of my favorite movie:

Menage a tois (a Boston poem)

I. We polished off sixteen ounces of So-Co

on a Tuesday night, savoring the last

few swallows around four a.m. We were watching

West Side Story and Tom cried

when Tony fell dead, when Maria stood up

for nonviolence. Whitney said she didn’t

like the movie. As always, I was somewhere

in the middle, content to hum and sing

about love and rumbles and all things passionate.

II. Tom colored the nails on his right hand

black with Whitney’s good Sharpie

and drew symbols of anarchy on his wrist.

While she was in the bathroom, he asked me

what else he should draw. I said a heart.

He put an arrow through it.

III. It was the nicest thing anyone had ever said

to me -- “You know, honestly, I have to say, any man

who has even had the chance to touch you

is the luckiest man...” Oh, that Tom,

who told me again that I should call

the lead singer in his band. I balked. Whitney sat

beside the bassist with her arms folded across her chest.

Originally written for the ABC's of 2016 on September 23, 2016 under the title "F is for Fragile."